Tips and Tricks for Learning Chinese

[dakonglong]

On 1/27/2023 at 5:54 AM, sanchuan said:

On the other hand, to sit in a car and come up with a word like 方向盘, unprompted, does necessitate some form of SRS drilling (or extensive car-related reading/talking). 

 

I personally use writing for this. Specifically, I will choose a topic, then sit down and write an article. During the course of writing I will often need a word that is not part of my active vocabulary, so I will look it up in Pleco. At that point I will come across 10+ variations of that word in Chinese, but my passive knowledge will tell me which of them is most appropriate. Then, after writing the word a couple of times in a few different contexts it seems to transition to my active vocabulary.

[sanchuan]

On 1/27/2023 at 5:19 PM, dakonglong said:

Specifically, I will choose a topic, [...]Then, after writing the word a couple of times in a few different contexts

That's topic-specific spaced repetition, just not software-based. It's what I meant by "extensive car-related reading/talking" - but you make a great point that writing works wonders for it to. 

 

Though I'm genuinely unsure whether it translates into oral proficiency just as well.